Ssangyong Motor workers reject final offer to end strike

By Kim Deok-hyun
PYEONGTAEK, South Korea, June 26 (Yonhap) -- Striking workers at troubled
Ssangyong Motor Co. rejected Friday the company's final proposal to end a
month-long strike that has threatened its survival.

About 1,200 workers at Ssangyong, currently under bankruptcy protection, have
occupied the company's only assembly plant in the port city of Pyeongtaek, about
70 km south of Seoul, since May 21 to protest a massive job-cut plan.
Earlier in the day, two court-appointed managers supervising Ssangyong's
bankruptcy proceedings said the company will offer voluntary severance to 450 out
of some 1,000 workers to be laid off. They also promised to rehire them once the
company turns itself around.
The striking workers said, however, that they would continue the strike "without
surrender until the management scraps the workforce restructuring plan."
"The only way for our survival is a do-or-die battle," said Song Young-seop, one
of the representatives with the Ssangyong union.
"We won't negotiate further with the management unless it withdraws the
large-scale layoff plan," Song said.
Pounded by plunging sales and mounting debts, Ssangyong was abandoned by its
Chinese parent Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. and forced to file for
bankruptcy protection in January this year.
A month later a local court accepted Ssangyong's filing, giving the loss-making
carmaker a second chance in return for promises by Ssangyong to cut 36 percent of
its workforce, or 2,646 employees, as part of restructuring efforts.
Since then, some 1,670 workers have left the company through voluntary retirement
plans while the remaining 976 workers have gone on strike.
Lee Yoo-il, one of the two court-appointed managers at Ssangyong, warned that
Ssangyong may be liquidated unless the workers accept the final offer and end
their strike.
"If they refuse, I won't step back," Lee told reporters in front of the
Pyeongtaek plant's main gate, about an hour before union officials were to hold a
press conference. "The union would not want to see the company's insolvency."
Ssangyong posted its sixth straight quarterly net loss in the first three months
of this year.
The company posted a net loss of 265 billion won (US$205.9 million) in the first
quarter, compared with a loss of 34 billion won for the same period last year.
First-quarter sales plunged 66 percent from a year ago to 234 billion won.
(END)